The Heidelberg Project has put a $3 million capital and operational campaign on hold following unsolved arson fires that have destroyed six of the project's house art installations since last May.

Rather than focusing on construction of new installations on its namesake Heidelberg Street and adjacent Elba Street, the Detroit nonprofit is in an introspective mode following the fires.

It's reassessing what it does and what it should do to continue to meet its mission to change communities through art.

Executive Director Jenenne Whitfield

"We don't know where the fires are coming from," said Executive Director Jenenne Whitfield, who is married to the project's artist, Tyree Guyton.

"Do people think that because we had these fires, we no longer exist? We need to help people understand we are more than just an art installation."

The Heidelberg Project has an international reputation as a pioneer in creative placemaking, which the National Endowment for the Arts defines as the collaborative efforts of the public and private sectors, nonprofits and communities to shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood.

People in other countries seem to have a better understanding of what the nonprofit does than people locally, Whitfield said.

"We want Detroit to have that same understanding," she said.

The first order of business, however, is securing the Heidelberg Project installations. Whitfield said four remain.

After losing a security camera to the extreme cold and intense heat from the latest fire on March 7 and hiring patrolling security to monitor the site, the nonprofit is trying another approach.

It plans to add new solar energy streetlights on Heidelberg and Elba as part of an enhanced security plan, funded through $54,000 raised from donors around the globe to help secure the art installations, Whitfield said.

The organization is also planning new amenities for Heidelberg Street, she said. Those will include benches and a sculpture garden aimed at engaging visitors who come for lectures and talks.

Those efforts will be aimed at protecting the installation for the 50,000 per year who come to see the art and hear Guyton's lectures.

At the same time, the nonprofit continues to provide art programs for K-12 students and do community volunteer and project outreach with young volunteers. It ended a program that showcased emerging artists in October because other organizations were doing that better, Whitfield said.

Central to the project's sustainability is strengthening its brand and raising awareness about its role as a creative placemaking pioneer, Whitfield said.

In June, the organization plans to launch "Heidelbergology," a series of blogs and podcasts that will tell the history of the project. The effort will cost about $45,000, a third of which Heidelberg is hoping to secure through the Michigan Humanities Council, Whitfield said.

The project is also working on a new full-length film and a book with professors at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University to tell its story, she said.

The Heidelberg Project has been around for 28 years, but it didn't get its first grants until about five years ago, said Jodee Fishman Raines, vice president of programs for the Bloomfield Hills-based Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, which may have been the first to give one.

The project's budget has expanded and contracted the past few years as new grants have come in to boost the money it gets from individual contributions and revenue from tours and the sale of T-shirts, hats and children's books. Its 2013 tax filings are not yet complete, but the project's unaudited revenue number for last year was $348,000, according to its independent accountant, Heidi Coffman. It ended the year with an estimated loss of $52,000.

That compares to revenue of $193,502 and a loss of $132,182 in 2012 and $594,758 in 2011 revenue buoyed by a $300,000 grant from the Los Angeles-based Annenburg Foundation.

At the end of 2013, Heidelberg had $365,000 in assets, Coffman said. That's down from $409,080 in 2012 and $541,262 in 2011.

Grants can only carry a nonprofit so far, Raines said, which is why the majority of the $350,000 in grants Erb has made to the project over the past five years required it to raise a matching amount from individual donors.

Heidelberg also has had support from the Washington, D.C.-based John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Troy-based Kresge Foundation and the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan.

"We believe strongly enough in them as artists and innovators that we believe they have a continued role to play," Raines said.

"We don't know what it is yet, but we believe they are thinking about it and will find a way to continue."

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